David Hall's Non-Duality Blog

My name's David Hall. I'm the creator of this web site and its content. I live in Wales in the UK.
I developed the Celtic design software KnotWorker, I create electronic music as Goldcup7, and I've written books on spirituality and non duality.

Hope you enjoy this Non Duality blog. New blogs are added on Fridays.
Please use the Contact page if you have any questions or would like me to discuss a topic.

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Ownership is a human idea.We Non-Duality folk don't agree with sharing. I'm just having a little fun here, but it's true. In Non-Duality there is no sharing. There is no-one who shares, nothing that is owned, and no other to share with. So really we don't agree with sharing.
 
I should add that neither do we agree with selfishness and ownership. I'll explain. Non-Duality is the understanding or recognition that there are 'not two', or not many. It kind of means that reality is One, but even that's not wholly accurate, as the One is infinite. It's really no number. There is only This. Although the world may appear to be separated into multiple things, that is only an appearance of This, or What Is.
 
Generally in the human experience sharing is considered to be a good thing. It's considered kind to share things, and of course it is. But strictly speaking there is no sharing. Sharing means to give some of what you have to others or let others use some of what is yours. Well, in Non-Duality there is no you and others. There is only this Infinite One. The notion that there is a 'you' separate from the world is incorrect. It is additionally incorrect that there are things that belong to this idea of 'you'. There is no separate you and there are no separate things. Also, there is no ownership of things. Ownership is a human idea. Truly no human owns anything. Even more truly, there are no separate humans and separate things. The world is one infinite indivisible What Is.
 
So sharing may seem good and is a good human practice, we could say, but it's not factually correct. The act of sharing is of course good, because it breaks down the supposed barriers of separation. So it is to be encouraged. But it is not to be believed. What that means is that it's good for humans to share, as it's a good expression of Oneness, but it should ideally be done with the knowing that nothing is 'yours' anyway. Allow the play of interaction to play out. It is the Oneness playing at separation and unity.
 
Let's also consider selfishness. We might say that the more selfish someone is, the less they will share. Selfishness is the opposite of the reality of Infinite Oneness: it is a limited divided separateness. Selfishness is always lacking and wanting, whereas true Oneness is complete in itself. Selfishness seeks ownership and likes to define its separation from others by claiming its own identity. Selfishness isn't satisfied in being on its own. There is an emptiness it tries to fill by collecting and owning things. Ownership becomes important to selfishness. It is then that selfishness refuses to share what it feels it owns.
 
However, when selfishness does begin to soften and drop its hardened defences, it begins to allow sharing. It gives away what it felt was its own. It didn't really own anything anyway. But it thought it did, and it may feel the loss in sharing. But it can be therapeutic then to share. Sharing expresses the breaking down of barriers from 'others'. Sharing brings the selfish one closer to the Infinite One. Sharing drops the limitations that the selfish self has built around itself. Through repeated sharing the selfish self gives more and more of itself away, until there is no self left. There is only This.
 
Truly nothing is gained or lost in reality. It only seems to come and go. Reality is always right here, complete and content. What is perceived as a world of opposites is a play of giving and taking within the Infinite Oneness of reality. Nothing is given. Nothing is taken away. Reality remains complete and unlimited.
Remain strong in kindness.Why not allow your human self to become a vessel of Love and Peace? It's the highest achievement for humanity. The reason it is the highest is because Love and Peace is reality. You could say it's the Way, the Truth and the Light. It surely is.
 
How can Love and Peace be reality when we hear so much about war, abuse and atrocities in the world? Love and Peace are Oneness. This world plays out as if it is far from the reality of Oneness, as if it is a world divided against itself. It plays out an appearance of separation, clashing, conflict and selfishness, which are the opposites of the reality of Oneness. Humanity gets caught up in this play of separation, and the love and peace of oneness seems to be a rare thing.
 
But why run around with drama after drama, with a life of conflict and confusion, selfishness and division? Let's look at how people can become vessels of Love and Peace. It's not really that 'we' become vessels of Love and Peace. We are Love and Peace. It's about letting this come through into the human world. It's not that we need to change, but that the human experience can change to one of peace and love. How do we bring this about?
 
Firstly, let's dismiss the idea that love and peace are happy hippy notions. Love and Peace is the nature of reality. By that, I mean that reality is an infinite indivisible singularity. Love is the coming together in unity of beings that have assumed separate identities. Love is Oneness, in other words. The singular infinite being is One, and what we experience as love is this closeness to Oneness. Similarly, Peace is a harmony beyond separation. When conflict turns to peace it is coming back to Oneness. It is this Oneness that is the reality of life. It is Love and Peace itself. Anything other than this is a play of opposites within the Oneness of life.
 
So that's the theory, if theory is needed. Love and Peace is good and right, because it is the nature of reality. Why then engage in ideas of conflict and division? Start bringing this Oneness into the human life. Let go of ideas of 'me' and 'them'. There are no others. You are not limited by the human body, and there are no others limited by human (or non-human) bodies. There is only the Infinite Oneness. Show love and kindness; it brings about peace and oneness. Humans have mental barriers that prevent this Oneness being expressed. The more that humans drop these barriers, the more the notion of separation drops and Oneness is revealed to be ever-present.
 
Dropping the barriers doesn't mean that people should unlock the doors to their homes and let everyone run in and take over. We know that humans are at different levels of realising oneness, and some seem very far from this, competing, fighting and claiming things for themselves. So people cannot open their doors, literally or metaphorically, to allow unscrupulous folks to take advantage. Some caution is required. Some barriers are needed for protection, to allow the work of openness and oneness to take place. What that means is that people need to look after themselves and protect themselves whilst allowing Love and Peace to shine through. It's the flag and flagpole scenario: the flag of freedom will be blown away on the wind if it doesn't have the firm grounding of the flagpole. This is how Love, Peace and Truth can function in this seeming world of opposites. There needs to be a balance to allow freedom.
 
So we drop the human notion of separation, we recognise that there is only One, and we allow our actions to be those that lead towards love, peace and oneness. We show love and kindness in our actions. But we also maintain the stability of this and not allow it to be taken advantage of and ruined. We remain strong in kindness. We show kindness to others but drop the sense of others. We drop selfishness as much as possible. It gets easier with practice, and we become less selfish and freer as a result. I say 'we', but it should be noted again that we are not this person or that person. We are What Is. There are no limits to who we are, so we cannot say this is me and that isn't me. Recognise that there is only Oneness, and this is Love and Peace.
 
Allow Love and Peace to freely flow through the human experience. This message is for the body-mind of the human reading this. It is the body-mind that can free itself and benefit the world by dropping its ideas of selfishness. Peace and Love is the ultimate answer. It is the only answer. Peace and Love will inevitably prevail.

We cannot directly describe an infinite indivisible reality. We have to refer to what it is not.Let's consider Truth. There is Absolute Truth and there is relative truth. Relative truth is what we're used to. It's where we say, "Today is Tuesday," and it is a Tuesday. Or we say, "Four plus three equals seven." Those statements seem to be true enough, but they are dependent on other information being true. "Today is Tuesday" is dependent on a shared understanding of what "today" means and what "Tuesday" means. For a German speaker today might be Dienstag. For someone on the other side of the world our today could be their yesterday or tomorrow. It sounds silly, but the point is that it's not wholly true.

In fact, nothing can be said is wholly true. Anything that can be said or thought is at best relatively true, or at worst relatively false. One of the reasons behind this is that nothing can be truly and accurately defined. All the words we use are at least slightly vague. We cannot say with precise accuracy where "today" begins and ends. In fact "today" is a made-up reference to a span of 24 hours, which are themselves human made divisions of time. Time is not truly divided into hours or days. These are terms that we share an understanding of, and they are only then relatively true.

We can go further and recognise that relative truth is not the truth. It is not true truth. Nothing that can be thought or said is true. Thoughts, words, ideas and theories are useful but never true. Truth itself cannot be expressed. This means Absolute Truth. What is Absolute Truth? Absolute Truth is reality. What does that mean? It means that Absolute Truth is right here all along, no matter what falsehoods are expressed. Absolute Truth is the unchanging constant reality. Truth is Reality.

I cannot write what Truth really is. I can only write what it is like or not like. I can write that reality is a singularity, that there is no division of things. But that is only to correct a human misunderstanding that reality is divided into things. The statement isn't wholly accurate, because it depends on relative ideas and a sense of "division" and "things", which it denies. We understand what a "singularity" is by reference to what it is not. Again, as mentioned elsewhere, we use the negative or reflective term to indicate reality. Just as the term Non-Duality refers to the non-existence of duality (separation or division).

You see, we cannot directly describe an infinite indivisible reality. We have to refer to what it is not. This is a strange one, as what it is not does not exist. But human thinking has assumed that the reflective qualities are real. Human thinking assumes that relative truths are real truths. Better, perhaps, to recognise that Absolute Truth is inexpressible but evident in all that seems to be expressed, and that words, ideas and theories cover a spectrum of untruths that in a sense are closer to or further from Absolute Truth.

Let's break that down. Absolute Truth is inexpressible. The world is an expression of it, and is not other than it, yet it cannot wholly and accurately represent Truth. Any expression of Truth is less than it, yet exists within it. Truth allows the expression of untruths. All words, ideas and theories are not wholly True. They can point to Truth more or less closely. For instance, "Love is All" points closely to Truth, whereas "Hate is All" is far from the Truth. (Love is an expression of the Oneness of Reality, whilst hate is its reflection, expressing division.)

So we have Absolute Truth as the measure of all things that are not the truth. How does this help? Well, we know that no matter what thoughts think, they are not accurate. Why should we pay so much attention to thoughts when they are never really accurate anyway? Truth is silent and unspoken, always here, often overlooked. This reminds us to respect the silent stillness that is here. It encourages us to turn towards Truth and Stillness rather than get caught up in the drama of thinking and the world. It reminds us that we are not right and others wrong - all ideas are wrong. Just being, in silence and stillness, is closer to Truth than anything that can be said.

You are not what thoughts think you are.Where are you? You may give an answer describing where your body is located, like, "I'm sat on a chair in my garden," "I'm in Liverpool," or "I'm on holiday in Florida." But that's not really where you are. That's where the sense of the human body is in relation to the rest of the world. It's far from exact. You could give precise coordinates of where your human body is, and indeed the body could be located from those accepted coordinates. But that's not really where you are.

You are not the body. You perceive the body. You perceive the world through the senses of the body. You also perceive thoughts, which are assumed to belong to the body. Well, the thoughts have assumed they are the body. It is thinking that identifies with the body that we perceive and through whose senses the world is perceived. Thinking thinks, "This is me." But it's wrong. You are not what thoughts think you are. Truly the body is not totally separated form from the world - no man is an island. There are no clear points where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. The body is an indivisible 'part' of the whole. So it's only a vague assertion of thought in identifying with something that isn't really defined.

There is a 'deeper' you that perceives the body, perceives thinking, and perceives the sense of identity with the body. Some may feel that they have a soul, but that is more like thoughts thinking that the body has a soul. It would be less inaccurate to say that the soul has a body. Where is the soul? We cannot say. The soul is assumed to be a spiritual identity that incarnates in the human body. Is it really in the body? We cannot say.

The most accurate that we could say is, "I am here." As soon as we try to describe where 'here' is we drift into inaccurate speculation. We can confidently say, "I am always here." But truly here is nowhere and everywhere. Everywhere you go you are here, but the real you never goes anywhere. That 'deeper' you is aware being. You are and you are aware that you are. This awareness is 'who' you are. It is not an identity as such. Awareness is what perceives the sense of identity coming and going. It is Awareness that remains when the body wakes and sleeps, comes to life and fades away. Awareness perceives the passing of life and death, whilst remaining in the natural state of Being. It is Awareness that perceives the passing of time and change from its unchanging timelessness.

You, me, everyone, all that is, is Awareness. Nothing is ever perceived outside of Awareness. Human conscious and unconscious states are perceived in Awareness. All fluctuations of the world rise and fall in the ever-present Awareness. Where is this Awareness that we are? All we can say is that it is Here. It is not relative to any other. There are no others. There is nothing beyond Awareness. It has no depth or distance. It is infinite and formless. The world moves within Awareness. Without Awareness the world cannot appear.

So know that you are not the body, nor even a soul that comes and goes. You perceive the comings and goings of the world. You are the Awareness that is the heart and whole of the world. You are Here Now, the timeless alert presence that perceives the fluctuating activity within the unchanging stillness of Aware Being.

Recognise that it is Stillness that perceives relative stillness and motion. It is Peace that perceives relative peace and conflict. It is the Dimensionless that perceives relative closeness and distance. It is the Timeless that perceives relative beginnings and ends.

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